‘INSTITUTIONALIZED STORIES’: CHILDHOOD AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN MUSEUM DISPLAYS

Abstract

This article addresses the museum as institution and its contribution to post-Wende cultural memories of growing up in the Third Reich. Drawing on museum theory and practice, it examines different representational strategies as a way of theorizing about the limits and possibilities of depicting childhood under Nazism in the cultural sphere. Through a close reading of contemporary museum displays (in Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Hagen), it explores ‘institutionalized stories’ (Brian W. Ferguson) on offer about this childhood experience; the extent to which these have been controlled and challenged by museums; and the museum’s power and potential as an institution to shape part of that historical narrative of childhood. Finally, the article analyzes the deployment of the museum as metaphor in autobiographical works by Martin Walser and Joachim Fest, both of whom grew up under Nazism, and considers whether it is possible to speak of an ‘institutionalized’ memory of childhood in the Third Reich.